Fear Itself
by K Hanna Korossy
Summary: Sympathy for the Devil missing scenes and tag: There's plenty to be afraid of besides the Apocalypse.


**Fear Itself**  
K Hanna Korossy

Bobby hung up the phone and stared at it, slack-jawed. Dean's devastation still rang through his head: _I was too late, Bobby. _He ran a hand down his face. "Balls," Bobby whispered, the imprecation feeling utterly inadequate.

The Apocalypse had begun.

He'd known Sam was walking a razor edge; he'd _told _Dean not to push the kid too hard or he'd fall off. But did those two ever listen to him? Couple of hard-headed jackasses. And now they'd gone and sprung Lucifer from his box.

Shaking his head, trying to keep his hands from shaking, Bobby darted around his house with purpose, collecting his always-packed duffel, a selection of armaments, and a few books that probably wouldn't do any good but were still their best bet. Because God knew—literally—how you could shove the devil back in his cage once he was out.

Stone-cold fear wound around Bobby's heart.

It wasn't really the boys' fault; the rational part of him knew that. The deck hadn't just been stacked against the Winchesters: every single card had been friggin' booby-trapped. There wasn't a move they could make that wouldn't screw them over, not with Heaven and Hell gunning for them. But Lucifer… Bobby had felt the rumble of the earth clear across the country as the Prince of Darkness had slipped his leash.

Fear was edging into outright panic.

Cursing under his breath, Bobby hauled the three bulging bags outside, barely bothering to shove the door shut behind him. They didn't fix this, and there wouldn't be anything to come back to. He tossed the bags into the back of the Chevelle and climbed in.

He'd just barely cleared the front gate when the red and blue lights started flashing behind him.

Bobby swore again and debated flooring it. The Chevelle wasn't much to look at, but he and Dean had souped her up; she could probably take on a cruiser. But this was his hometown, and that was one of Jody's boys, and if he did end up having something to come home to, he'd have a lot of fences to mend if he ran now. 'Sides, the Devil hadn't started his march on Georgia just yet; a few minutes probably wouldn't make a difference. Face twisted into a grimace, Bobby pulled over, watching the cruiser park behind him.

Lucifer was free. A traffic stop wasn't even a bug on the windshield of that train wreck. Bobby could taste his own trepidation, felt it lodge like a cannonball in his gut. Even Karen, black-eyed and coming at him with a knife, hadn't settled terror bone-deep in him like this. The whole world was set to go down the crapper this time. And he was sitting there waiting for some cop—

A hand reached inside the car and yanked the chain off Bobby's neck before he had a chance to even turn his head.

"What the—?"

The anti-possession amulet went soaring into the dust of the road. And even as Bobby's eyes went wide with horrified realization—_fear_, he'd opened himself to possession, idiot!—there was already a cloud of black funneling toward him, jamming his mouth open, shoving down into his body, his soul, every nook and cranny of him.

And Bobby realized that, yes, actually, he could be even more terrified than he'd already been.

His mouth pulled into a smile, his arm put the car in gear again, and Bobby Singer drove off down the road, screaming inside his head.

00000

"Sam's got a lead on a book down in Albuquerque, got some lore in it about Michael putting Lucifer away. Figured it's worth a check, right?"

Dean's words, full of bravado, had zero effect on the person they were addressed to. Sam watched, pained, as a stone-faced Bobby lay in the hospital bed, staring out the window.

Dean's determinedly upbeat expression faltered, and he glanced at Sam. Any other time, he would have been pulling support and strength from his brother, but not now. _You were the one I depended on the most. And you let me down in ways that I can't even… _

Dean's face shut down even more, and he turned back to Bobby. "Oh, found your car this morning. Sam's working on getting the sulfur smell out, then I figure we'll have her towed back to your place. I know you're not gonna be up for driving for a while but, uh, not forever, right? Just gotta—"

Sam fled the room before he started to cry and lost the last shred of pride he had left.

He only made it a few steps out into the hospital hallway before slumping against the wall, breathing deep and feeling like he was choking.

He'd seen Dean like this before: after Dad died, after Hell. Overwhelmed with loss, able to go on only by shoveling on the denial and stuffing all his pain into the bulging box in the back of his mind. Sam had killed the world, had actually started the end of six-plus billion people all by himself, and somehow it was this, having destroyed his brother's last hope, that was what really brought it home.

Sam's next breath sounded like a sob to his ears.

Dean had told him how the angels had practically collaborated with the other side to manipulate Sam into fulfilling his part. He himself had been the key to Lucifer's cell door; not even in Sam's wildest fears had he ever imagined he could be such evil. Turned out he shouldn't have just been pleading with Dean to put him down if he went too far; Sam should've done it himself as soon as he'd accepted that first mouthful of Ruby's blood. Would've saved the planet, and his brother's belief in him. He'd do it in a second now, if there wasn't the tiniest chance he could still somehow help fix the terrible thing he'd done. And if it didn't feel like the coward's way out, too little, way too late.

Sam covered his eyes with a hand, nodding tersely when a passerby asked him if he was all right. Sure, the Destroyer of the World was doing just peachy, thanks.

The thought left him literally breathless.

"I'm gonna pick up some sandwiches—you want one?"

The one voice he couldn't ignore. Sam turned to face Dean, who'd stepped out into the hall behind him. He could see his brother register the ravaged look of his face, fleeting concern quickly replaced by careful apathy. Sam shook his head. "No."

"Chicken salad it is." Dean hesitated, then edged past Sam and headed down the hallway toward the elevator.

Sam watched him go, heart feeling like it was going to thud out of his chest. When he'd been afraid of thunderstorms, of the thing in his closet, of life without Jess, without Dad, without Dean, his big brother had always had the answers, the squeeze of the back of his neck, the belief that kept Sam going.

He had no idea how he could face this horror beyond measure on his own.

00000

Castiel hovered uncertainly outside the door, not certain himself why he didn't just appear inside, or at least knock.

Dean resolved the dilemma for him by choosing that moment to open the motel door and walk out, nearly colliding with Castiel as he did.

"Whoa. Cas? What're you—?" Dean's eyebrows shot up. "Did you find…?"

"No. I am still searching for my Father." Castiel shifted, feeling the confines of his human body so much more now that he was cut off from Heaven.

"Oh. So you just dropped in to say hi?" Dean prodded, turning to lean back against his car next to Castiel, also facing the building.

"No, I…" He realized belatedly Dean had been sarcastic yet again. "I…went to see Claire."

Why had he shared that?

Dean's eyes opened wider. "Claire, like, Jimmy's Claire? How's she doing?"

"She is…struggling to understand. Her father made choices she did not, but she must live with the consequences." Castiel hesitated, also an unfamiliar new habit. "God does not separate families lightly, Dean. Jimmy Novak wanted this, but the cost has been high."

"No kidding," Dean muttered beside him.

Castiel looked over, meeting the man's eyes. "Do you know why it was that Jimmy, of all the faithful, was called?"

Dean shrugged. "I figured it was the whole bloodline thing—not everyone can host an angel, right?"

"True. But several others would also have filled the requirement. However, the Novaks live in Pontiac. Near—"

"—where Sam buried me," Dean breathed. His eyes closed, face crumpling. "Crap."

"Yes," Castiel gravely agreed.

They sat in silence a long moment.

"Claire and her mother will be safe now. The danger has passed; they have played their part and are under protection."

Dean snorted. "Protection, right. After they lined up to get screwed like Sam and I did."

Castiel hurt in a way he could not define. There was the grief of separation from Heaven, and sadness at the despair in Dean Winchester's voice, and anger at how the Winchesters had nonetheless helped free Lucifer. But there was also something growing inside Castiel that he did not understand nor seemed able to tame. He shifted again, searching inside himself, inside Jimmy for an answer to this tight, restless feel.

"You're still worried about them," Dean abruptly stated next to him.

Startled, Castiel look up, to find the human watching him. He frowned. "I am not. They're safe." Dean's mouth, oddly, looked almost as if it were fighting a smile. "Just worried about the end of the world then?"

Castiel blinked. The action was instinct more than need, but it seemed to suit. "The world will not end. Lucifer and Michael will cause widespread destruction, but afterward—"

"I know the party line, Cas—doesn't keep me from white-knuckling it."

He almost asked what that meant, for the comfort of a familiar ritual. He'd never felt the need for comfort or the familiar before. Was this fear then? The very thought made him cold. "Dean…"

"No." Dean shook his head. "I'm not doing this with you, too. Bobby and Sam are already…" He swallowed. "You keep looking for Dad and answers, and we'll work on it from this end, okay?" He peered at Castiel, eyes bright. "I know it sucks, but we gotta keep going, Cas. You stop to panic, and it's over."

Castiel swallowed what seemed to be an abundance of saliva in his mouth and nodded. "I am not giving up."

Dean nodded back, clearly trying again to smile but failing, before he went back inside the room.

Castiel did not understand how, but that unsuccessful gesture just made him…_fear_ all the more.

00000

Sam sat on the far bed, reading through the same books he'd already scoured from beginning to end. Dean tooled around on the equally useless laptop and pretended not to watch him.

He'd been afraid of many things in his life, even if he would only admit them to himself. He'd been afraid of fire as a kid, and CPS. He'd feared losing his dad and brother. He'd had a healthy fear of monsters and death, just enough to make him sharp.

Things eventually became more complicated. He came to fear losing his family's souls more than their bodies. He'd feared losing control of himself. He'd feared failing Sam, betraying their father's final words and letting Sam become a monster. He'd feared Hell. And then, in that moment in the convent, he'd feared Sam himself.

Seemed kind of ridiculous now, with the kid slouched on the bed next to him, hair messily in his face, eyes pooled with exhaustion and grief. But in the end, it had made something clear: the one thing Dean really, truly feared, the one that all those other fears had at their root, was losing his brother. Dean's life was too wrapped around Sam, intertwined with him since he was four, to survive the uprooting with sanity intact.

He didn't know how to forgive Sam for being the one to almost take that from him. And that scared him, too.

So here they sat, a dozen feet apart and more disconnected than when Dean had been in Hell. At what point would he have lost his brother completely, Dean wondered, even while they were in the same room?

"You think that's why the angels followed your orders when Samhain was released? Because you're the vessel?" Sam's words were quietly spoken, but they broke into Dean's thoughts like a thunderclap.

"What?" He frowned. "I dunno, Sam, maybe? Does it matter?"

"I don't know. I guess it doesn't. Just…" He sighed, pushing away the book in front of him. "I feel like we're missing something, you know? I release Lucifer, and you and Michael fight him? That's it?"

"That not enough for you?" Dean asked, heavy on the sarcasm. "You wanna find Raphael and Gabriel, do them a solid, too? Hey, why stop there—why not reopen the Devil's Gate, too? Get it over with once and for all!"

Sam flushed and looked down like a whipped pup.

And crap if Dean didn't feel like a heel. Which wasn't fair; he hadn't started this.

The small traitorous voice in him reminded him that Sam hadn't, either. He'd been on the hook since he was six months old.

Dean breathed out. "Sam, that's not what I—"

"It's okay," Sam was quick to say. "I deserved it."

He was hard-pressed to argue.

But he was losing Sam. The big break had come in Ilchester, but Sam was adrift now and slipping a little further away from him each day; Dean could feel it. Even if they found a way to stuff Lucifer back in his lockbox, Dean wasn't sure he and Sam could be fixed.

The blinding fear of that thought gnawed at his insides, had him sick and distracted and hurting.

"I'm gonna take a shower," Sam suddenly announced, and hurried into the bathroom before Dean could say a word.

He gnawed his lip as the door clicked shut. He knew what Sam was doing, remembered those first days after Jessica when Sam would take long showers and come out red-eyed and sniffly. He had little left, but he still had some pride.

The water turned on inside the bathroom.

Dean was desperately afraid of losing Sam, but he knew that Sam feared becoming a monster just as much. And Sam was terrified that had already happened. Dean squeezed the bridge of his nose between two fingers, trying to figure out when exactly they'd taken this left turn into Totally Screwed Up.

There was a soft hiccup of sound over the patter of falling water and squeaking pipes. It made Dean's chest ache.

The thing was, he didn't think Sam was evil. Dean got that he'd done the wrong thing with good intentions. Sam had betrayed his brother, screwed the pooch that had turned out to be a demonic bitch, and turned out not to be the person Dean had thought and relied on him to be, but that didn't make him a monster, just seriously misguided. And while Sam's actions had crushed Dean and destroyed his trust, they didn't make him love Sam less. He wasn't sure anything could do that. And wasn't that just the Hell of it?

Another muted sound from the shower, and a thump, as if fist had struck futilely at tile.

Dean winced. What Sam feared, it wasn't gonna happen. But if he didn't at least try to get Sam to see that, then Dean's own fears were sure to come true.

This was just for his own self-protection, he told himself as he got up and went to first his duffel, then Sam's, collecting items from both: the hoodie Sam had loaned him, Sam's Stanford sweatpants, Dean's thick winter socks. He hesitated, then added a bottle of painkillers; he couldn't help notice how Sam was squinting and rubbing his forehead. Stiffly, Dean took the pile into the bathroom and plopped it onto the toilet seat, not answering when a congested-sounding _"Dean?"_ came from behind the shower curtain. He went back out, shut the door behind him, and leaned against it, feeling unutterably tired.

It never stopped. Honestly, he was too weary to be afraid that it never would.

The shower finally cut off, sluggish movements filtering out from within. Dean stepped away from the door and dropped back into his seat. A glance at the laptop, and he shut the lid, not interested in continuing the fruitless search. He just sat.

Sam shuffled out five minutes later. His eyes skimmed over to Dean, still wet and sad but also glimmering with gratitude and a spark of life.

Dean found sudden fascination in the carryout menus piled on the table.

Lucifer was loose, the Apocalypse had begun, Bobby was in a wheelchair, and Dean's face still ached from where Sam had whaled on him. They could barely look each other in the eye, as messed up as they'd ever been. But they were still brothers, and Sam hadn't turned into a monster, and Dean wasn't alone. It didn't really ease the fear of what was coming.

Maybe, though, it would give them the courage to face it.

**The End**


End file.
